HD on Digital Terrestrial - On Air

That's really not good enough though, is it?

The BBC have been forced to clear the BBCB Mux and cancel some of their red button services for the benefit of HD broadcasts to....ermmm.....nobody!

It's never going to happen overnight, Stuart.

I presume that you mean the supply and reception capability for Freeview HD.

Unfortunately, they have well and truly placed the cart before the horse here, and also sold many of the chickens on the farm as they were about to lay the DSO egg.

Apologies for the elaborate metaphor, but it illustrates my concerns on this matter!

If Ofcom really wanted to belately grant an HD service, then they should've used part of the newly vacant spectrum as and when DSO happened in each area. That would only be until such time that compression allowed all existing services to be squeezed onto 5 muxes, then BBCB could've been used and the 'vacant slot' sold as previously planned.

Instead, while touting the delights of DSO, we now have a situation where Ofcom are telling people they are losing those services which were previously available, simply for the transmission of services that virtually nobody can receive.

DSO has been badly organised to start with, has taken far too long, and now has to include a fudge for HD transmissions. This needs to be looked at again, before the rest of the UK are turned off DTT altogether!

Very few people could receive the BBC's digital channels when they first launched in the late 1990s, but they didn't broadcast in place of other services. HD is the same, it should be additional, not a replacement for the few at the cost of everyone else, until such time as there is an equalibrium in reception of service.

But they will receive them in time... and does it really matter that people are not receiving less well used services for a year or so when they are going to lose them anyway eventually?

I would've thought that was very important, especially (as I said) that future compression technologies may allow them all to be broadcast within the specified 6 muxes.

How do you think BT would've fared if they announced that people would only get a reduced telephone service after they went to a digital exchange...until they could get Broadband?

It's been difficult enough for the government to sell digital TV switchover, without cutting back on services part-way through on the basis that they had second thoughts. If I was in an up-and-coming DSO area I would be tempted to go for something other than DTT, simply on the basis that you don't know what will happen!

Exactly - and here we are at DSO and problems with SD services which should no longer be an issue are an issue - I.e. it rains, you lose channels!

Making Freesat the HD option for a FTA service was a much more sensible option, at no extra cost to the consumer. Yes, some might moan about a dish, but frankly those who care about HD aren't going to mind having a dish - and if there are numbers that too then they can look at providing HD on Freeview a few years down the line when the demand is actually there.

I agree.

If people are going to splash out £600+ on a decent 37" HD TV, then I don't see an issue with them getting a dish to receive it through Freesat. (A much smaller HD Ready TV won't give you a much better image, unless you want to sit 2' from the screen!)

If 'new technology' was truly seen as the accepted replacement despite its minority standing in the market, then we wouldn't still be seeing programmes with 4:3 safe areas, would we?

What is more likely to lead to disappointment is when people who have got a their freeview box ready for the promised 40 channels find they only get 15 when the relay transmitter they're served by goes through DSO, largely due to Government greed.

I wrote to my MP to ask whether she was aware that almost her entire constituency would be affected by this arbitrary postcode lottery and received a vague assurance that she would raise it with the appropriate minister and get back to me. I've heard nothing since, although the MP in question is suffering from an illness and is standing down at the next election.

I'm amazed that people in this situation aren't being advised that they would be better off getting Freesat (HD or SD, or from Sky) now rather than waiting for DTT.

That isn't the cause of the PSB1-3 vs COM1-3 difference - it is because the operators of the COM muxes (Arqiva own and run C and D and ITV now own A) have opted not to fund the extra transmitters required, and not match the reception levels BBC and Digital 3/4 have decided to fund for Muxes 1 and 2.

The government was never going to fund new transmitters, it hasn't for BBC or ITV/C4 on Muxes 1 and 2, but the operators of the commercial muxes have decided it is not in their commercial interests to fund extra relay/fill-in transmitters for Muxes A, C and D (now COM 1-3) as the increased audience wouldn't pay for the extra cost.

(The numbers are scary - there are currently around 78 transmitters carrying COM1-3, whereas there could be over 1500 required to match current coverage...)

I think everyone in UK broadcasting wishes that Ofcom and the Government had allocated a chunk of the digital dividend spectrum that was free-ed up by the closure of analogue services for continued broadcasting - creating new and extra muxes (ideally two) for HD - giving us an 8 mux system. However even with intensive lobbying this didn't happen - the lure of large amounts of cash generated by selling them off was too great (and it will generate income for the country as a whole I guess...)

HD has to come to Freeview if it is to continue as a viable platform - and that is strategically VERY important to terrestrial broadcasters. Freesat will never be as popular with certain members of the community (particularly those in short-term rented accommodation, and those who can't receive satellite services either because of legal restrictions or geography) as Freeview, and as HD becomes the norm, a platform with no HD services becomes a second class citizen in quality terms.

Also interesting are the rumblings from the BBC that Red Button services may be an interim solution for some services - I guess as receivers gain broadband connections (and broadband becomes more universal because of the use of digital dividend spectrum for broadband provision in rural areas - the circularity of life) then some Red Button services will shift to broadband. (After all Freesat HD boxes and Freeview HD boxes will have iPlayer soon)

You have to have transmissions before you sell receivers surely? And it makes perfect sense to reconfigure the muxes as you perform DSO - as you reduce the number of re-tunes etc.

You could argue that operating Mux B with the Red Button services in non-DSO areas would be a better move - but running two different channel line-ups in two different areas would be expensive (you'd need more coding and mux kit) and you'd also have issues with Red Button stuff being trailled that couldn't be received in some regions.

Of course everyone in the broadcast industry would have preferred that one, or ideally two, extra muxes had been created for Freeview HD - but it didn't happen. The current solution is the least worst option. Leaving Freeview as an SD only ghetto would be a terrible scenario for the public service broadcasters.

On the plus-side - Freeview HD looks to be the platform that, at least initially, will get you the best public-service HD line-up (BBC HD, ITV1 HD and C4 HD - which isn't currently full available on any single platform). It will be interesting to see if ITV HD becomes a real ITV1 HD channel on Freesat - or if they have to stay on their Red Button system because they can't move to Astra 2D? It will also be interesting to see what happens in Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Channel Islands.

Apparently ITV have been branding their HD offering as 'ITV1 HD' since last night.

Thanks - just checked.

The Eurobird 1 (pan-European) DSat ITV HD feed seems to be going a bit bonkers at the moment randomly flipping between ITV1 upconverted (SD This Morning), a "This programme is unavailable on ITV1 HD" graphic and an old ITV HD (not ITV 1 HD) holding graphic (not the unavailable one)

So who knows how the DSat version will operate... It seems to have settled down on an upconvert at the moment - maybe it won't be in the Freesat EPG but will be there 24/7 so they don't have to run two services (ITV1 HD is a peak-time simulcast of ITV1 on Freeview HD I believe - though ITV can sub-contract their daytime spectrum independently of ITV1 I believe)